You want like a name? Oh, God, the pressure of a name....UPDATE 1/7

Hello! Welcome to my pre-trippie! I am getting ready to book things, and am getting super excited about this trip, and am bored this morning, so...seems like it's about time to start this report!

Basic details:
My family and I will be at WDW from Jan12-19, staying at Port Orleans Riverside! We were originally going to stay in a treehouse villa, which I was SUPER excited about, but the prices got waaaaaay jacked up for 2013, making that no longer a possibility So we switched to rooms at POR, which I'm also very excited about! There are six (maybe) of us and we'll each be 2 to a room.
My mom and I are actually heading to Florida on the 10th, two days before everyone else, so we can run the Disney World Half-Marathon! For our first two nights, we're going to stay at a Little Mermaid room at AoA, soooooo excited for that!!! I haven't actually booked any rooms yet, but I'm hoping to do that tomorrow
I've been planning this trip for quite a long time now, as it was intended to be a huge trip for all my extended family, and my best friend's extended family. So far the only ones who have confirmed are my immediate family, one aunt and one uncle, and my friend, her boyfriend, and her parents. I'm hoping more of the group will decide to book when discount codes (hopefully) come out, but even so, it will be a fantastic time with those who are already confirmed!

Brief cast of characters (just my immediate fam):
ME!--27, long-time Disney nut, substitute teacher and coach, will be my 3rd visit
DH--27, likes Disney more than he admits, high school teacher and coach, will be his 3rd visit
DMom--old enough to be my mom , super-energetic, first trip!!
DDad--old enough to be my dad , relax-at-the-resort type, first trip!!
DBrother1--28, might not be able to come as he just quit his job and has uncertain plans for the future...will be his first trip if he makes it!
DBrother2--25, both brothers aren't huge disney fans, but he's going to have a GREAT time with us lol, first trip!!
We're all from sunny California

That's all for now, just a very quick intro, but I'll be back soon with more details and probably some pics of us for fun

We'll be staying in the Little Mermaid room at AoA and Port Orleans Riverside too!! We'll be there in November though. I'm really excited since they'll both be a first for us.

It is SOOO much fun going with people that have never been before. Love seeing their excited and reactions to all there is to see and do at Disney.

Have fun planning your vacation.

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Thanks! I'm really excited to bring my family, I know they'll love it And my mom and I are really excited about running--we're also going to run the Disneyland half next September so we can get our coast-to-coast medals!

Just popping in to say: OUR ROOMS ARE BOOKED! Hooray! Two nights at Art of Animation in a Little Mermaid room for me and mommy, then got our three rooms at Port Orleans Riverside for a week with the rest of the family! I went ahead and upgraded to a garden view to ensure we won't be staring at parking lots Now just have to book the plane tickets!!

I'll be back later today with some random pics and more introductions!

So a little more about us...well, okay, mostly just a lot of pictures of us because I love pictures! But a picture speaks a thousand words, right?

DH (Dan) and I (Lauren) both work at our local high school, I sub and he teaches , and we coach together. Dan was sent to a conference in Orlando last month, so we were lucky enough to get to spend a few days at Disney World recently! Since we knew we'd be coming back in January (and we love going to Disneyland), we decided to go for it and buy Premier annual passes! This is probably the only time in my life I will own a Premier pass and it's my favorite little treasure right now Here we are with Smee:
Here I am in France with my Grand Marnier slush--I had heard a lot about these on Dis and was excited to try one! It was delicious; it tasted like a creamsicle! Mmmmm. I would definitely recommend this
And here's Dan in France, very sad that his beer is all gone
I mentioned that my friend and her parents would be joining us--Amber is my best friend and we have known each other since kindergarten She is my fellow Disney fanatic! Here we are at Disneyland during St Patrick's Day a couple years ago:
Her parents will be coming as well! They are very fun people Here's her dad with Tinker Bell at a 2010 Disneyland Halloween party
And here's our whole group that year:
I'm Wendy, Amber is Captain Hook, her dad, as you've seen, is Tinker Bell, and her mom is John. Our other two friends in the picture won't be joining us in January because they are expecting their first child next week!!

My parents came along for a Halloween party in 2009; here's our group that year:
We didn't have a tin man, but having the men be munchkins more than made up for it! Everybody loved them

Yes, I do have some pictures of us looking like normal people! This is Amber and her parents again:
and here I am with my momma:
and here are my parents! They recently celebrated their 30th anniversary and I threw them a surprise party; everyone made them pose and cut the cake like they were at their wedding
While putting this post together I realized that I hardly have any pictures of my brothers So here is a cropped shot of the family from last Christmas, as it was one of the only pictures I could find of them!
My older brother, Brandon, is on the far right wearing the dark sweater, and my younger brother, Jason, is in the black-and-blue checkered shirt. Like I said, not the best picture, but hey, what can you do?

Me, Dan, Amber, and her boyfriend have all been to Disney World before, but it will be the first trip for everyone else, and I am so excited for them! Amber is a DVC member so she and her parents will be staying at Animal Kingdom Villas. Amber's parents and my dad are a little more laid-back; they like to hang out at the resort and take it slow. I think they will really love hanging around Epcot! My mom has tons of energy and I know she will be willing to get up early with me every day! She is going to want to see and do absolutely everything. My brothers will probably be more of the take-it-slow types; I don't envision them getting up for early entry too often! Dan can go either way; some days he likes to be out and about all day, and some days he just wants to sleep! His favorite park is Epcot. As for me...I can't choose! I love them all! My least favorite is probably Hollywood Studios though...of course I don't dislike it, I just prefer the others!

Now you know us a teensy bit better, and I will leave you with one last photo! Dan came home last week and surprised me with a new laptop, and I wasted no time in getting it ready for Disney!
I ordered some really great decals from etsy a while ago to decorate my bathroom (no, we don't have children; yes, I will still have a fabulous Mickey bathroom!), and the super-sweet seller gave me a ton of extra decals for free! I loooooove them!

Last week, I found some airfares for just over $300, which I think is about the best we can do, but yesterday when I looked again in preparation to book them, the cheapest flights I could find were $400, with a lot of them closer to $500! I know if we wait and keep checking, we will be able to find flights for close to $300 again, but I also know that Southwest offers a credit card which will give you enough points for two round-trip flights when you first sign up! So we decided, why not save $300 apiece and get us some credit cards? The card does have a $69 annual fee, but $69 for two flights is certainly a much better deal than $600! So, flights have not yet been booked, as I was hoping, but instead we are on our way to some free flights! Not too shabby!

I've been in major planning mode lately, and already have a lot of my week at Disney planned out However, I'm sure a lot of those plans will change by the time we actually get there! My first couple days, though, when I'll just be with my mom, are pretty set. We will be flying to Orlando on Thursday the 10th, arriving in the evening. We'll have dinner...somewhere! Can you believe I haven't decided that yet? Then in the morning on the 11th I am going to take my mom to breakfast at The Wave; I think she'll really like the menu there She won't have park tickets for that day, so we'll take the monorail around to the hotels on the line and check them all out, then head over to the Health and Fitness Expo to pick up our packets and do some shopping! I'm hoping they have some presenters we'll be interested in listening to as well If they do have speakers we like, we can probably pretty easily spend our whole afternoon at the Expo. Otherwise, we'll head to Downtown Disney to do some browsing before we head to Epcot for...
Pasta in the Park! I think these tickets are very overpriced for a pasta dinner ($47.50 each), but we do also get reserved viewing for IllumiNations, and it will get my mom into the park Plus, well, I DO love pasta! I think this will be a lot of fun and I'm glad we decided to go ahead and buy the tickets!

On Saturday morning we will be up bright and early for the half-marathon, which starts at 5:30am! The rest of the family will arrive Saturday, but not until evening, so my mom and I will have a whole blank day...so she's going to get tickets for Saturday so we can celebrate our great half-marathon time (think positively lol) in the parks! And I'm sure we'll slip a nap in there at some point I'm getting sooooooo excited for our trip!

That's all for now folks! DH and I are driving down to Disneyland this weekend to check out Carsland!! Not really related to my pre-trippie, but I will be back after the weekend with lots of pictures for you!

I'm here!!! Your plans sound great!! We will be there the 6th to the 13th. My friend is flying down to run the half as well....I'm meeting her at DTD sat. night for some drinks after putting my kids to bed and leaving DH in charge.

Hi all! Sorry for my long absence! After our Disneyland trip things just got really busy for a couple of weeks! Anyway, I don't have any further WDW planning updates, but I do have lots of Cars Land pictures from California Adventure! The park looks amazing now that all the construction is done! And of course Cars Land is fabulous! Disney never fails to amaze me. I just love all the attention to detail So, without any further ado, let's go to Cars Land!
Heading under the archway into Radiator Springs! (No, I don't know those people )
And here we are in wonderful Radiator Springs!
Some racers zoomed by....
And as we walked into town, Mater came rolling through the streets!
It was so neat to see Mater and, later, Lightning McQueen drive by!
As you can see, Mater was passing by Flo's V-8 Cafe
There's a lovely little shop across the way
And Luigi's Casa Della Tires is just down the street!
It just so happens there is a festival going on at Luigi's!
Everyone'a having a great time on Luigi's Flying Tires
Ramone's House of Body Art is across the way
And down the street, a lovely statue of the founder of Radiator Springs
Then we headed over to...
Radiator Springs Racers! I tried to take some pictures of the inside of the ride (it's mostly a dark ride), but my camera is far too slow to get anything other than blurs But anyway, the ride was really cute and SO much fun! Loved it!! Here's our car picture
The cars are so cute!
On our way out of town, I had to snap a picture of these great "flowers"
We passed by the Cozy Cone Motel
You can see McQueen posing for pictures in the background there.
There are a few cozy cones selling yummy treats, and everything comes in a cone!
You can get ice cream cones, cones full of mini churro bites or pretzel bites, a bread cone with chili or chicken verde, or a cone full of popcorn...chili "cone" carne or pop"cone" hahaha
On our way out of Radiator Springs we also went by Fillmore's Taste-In
And Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, which we didn't get a chance to ride, and which I don't have a picture of for some reason But the baby tractors are super cute!
And I'll leave you now with one last picture from the Pacific Wharf Cafe
They made McQueen and Mater breads!! Awwwwesome! I was tempted to buy one just because, but I'm not a huge fan of sourdough so I settled for a picture

I'm here!!! Your plans sound great!! We will be there the 6th to the 13th. My friend is flying down to run the half as well....I'm meeting her at DTD sat. night for some drinks after putting my kids to bed and leaving DH in charge.

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Welcome! So you'll be there right before us Drinks in DTD is always a fabulous idea--unfortunately my mom doesn't drink so I'll have to have enough for the both of us

This isn't much of an update, I'm just really excited about what came in the mail today and I want to share!
New guidebook! I love guidebooks And this one has a glorious 848 pages!! I have an Unofficial Guide and a couple others from 2009, and it was my favorite WDW guidebook, so I decided it was time for an update. So excited to read this! I am one of those people who will read every single page of this thing like it's a novel So....off to start my obsessive reading, which I'm sure will translate into lots of plans and ideas to share here! Be back soon!

I'm very bad at writing pre-trips, aren't I? But not a lot, planning-wise, has been going on. EXCEPT that we finally booked our flights! The Southwest credit card worked great and I've even got a fair amount of points left over after booking flights for DH and myself. DMom and I will be arriving in Florida at 4:25pm, so even after travel time to the World and getting checked in to the hotel, we'll still be there in good time for dinner and some Downtown Disney browsing I've decided to take my mom to Earl of Sandwich for dinner, I know she'll love it! And we'll probably have to share a Ghirardelli sundae for dessert It feels so nice to finally have the flights booked! Ooh, and one other small but exciting update: I was able to call in and get that 30% discount off our POR rooms. Hooray for discounts!

Less than 3 months until I'm in Disney World!!

Oh, and one more thing! Last thing lol. My friend and I are headed to Disneyland for a Halloween party this weekend, so I'll have some pics to share next week